Links

• Advanced Wireless and Security Lab (ADWISE)
• LinkedIn Profile

Biography

Dr. Kemal Akkaya is the Professor and Chair of the Computer Science Department at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He received his PhD in Computer Science from University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2005. Prior to VCU, he was the Eminent Chaired Scholar Professor in the School of Computer and Information Sciences and Director for Center for Integrated Security, Privacy and Trustworthy AI (CIERTA) at Florida International University (FIU). He held several other positions before FIU. He was a faculty in the department of Computer Science at Southern Illinois University until 2014. Dr. Akkaya was also a visiting professor at The George Washington University in 2013, a Faculty Fellow at Airforce Research Lab in Summer 2020, visiting faculty at the University of Florida Nelms Institute of Connected World in 2021. He was also affiliated with Florida Institute of Cybersecurity.

At FIU, Dr. Akkaya was the director of the Advanced Wireless and Security Lab (ADWISE) where he conducted research on security and privacy, IoT, cyber-physical systems and blockchain. His research was funded by many federal and state agencies and industries including NSF, DoE, AFRL, DHS, DoT, DoL, NSA, INL, CyberFlorida, Cisco, and TrendMicro. He helped bring more than $20M in research funding to FIU. His hands-on research resulted in 10 patents some of which are jointly developed by local startups and government agencies. He has published around 300 papers in peer-reviewed journal and conferences with more than 21,000 citations and google h-index of 61.

Dr. Akkaya is a Fellow of IEEE and senior member of ACM. He serves as the associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Security and Forensics journal, area editor of Elsevier Adhoc Network and Computer Networks Journals. Dr. Akkaya was the editor-in-chief of Springer Nature Computer Science journal (2022-2023), the General Chair of IEEE LCN 2018, General Co-chair of IEEE NOMS 2023, and TPC Chair for IEEE ICC Smart Grid Communications in 2019. He was listed among the top 2% scientists in the world according to a Stanford University study from 2020 to 2024. Dr. Akkaya received FIU Faculty Senate Excellence in Research Award, FIU College of Engineering and Computing Research Award both in 2020 and FIU Top Scholar Award in 2023. He has also received many other awards including ``Top Cited'' articles and best papers.